Neil Armstrong

Modest moonwalker, Neil Armstrong was born on August 5, 1930 in Wapakoneta, Ohio. Armstrong had an interest in air travel from an early age, and took his first airplane trip at age six. By age 16, Armstrong already had his pilot’s license, and constructed a small wind tunnel in the basement of his home where he performed experiments on model airplanes.

In 1947, Armstrong was accepted to Purdue University with a U.S. Navy scholarship. He studied there for two years before being called to duty with the Navy and winning his jet wings at Florida’s Pensacola Naval Air Station. By age 20, Armstrong was the youngest pilot in his squadron, and went on to fly 78 combat missions during the Korean War.

Armstrong returned to University after his service, earning a degree in aeronautical engineering in 1955. Immediately after graduation, he was drafted to work with the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in Cleveland, Ohio. Meanwhile, Armstrong’s personal life was also taking off, and one year later he married girlfriend, Janet Shearon.

Armstrong was eventually transferred to NACA’s High Speed Flight Station at Edwards Air Force Base in California, where he became a skilled test pilot and flew early models of the F-100, F-101, F-102, F-104, F-5D, and B-47. NACA was impressed with Armstrong, and selected him as one of three people to fly the X-15 rocket plane, a prototype spacecraft. After achieving record-setting altitudes and speeds, Armstrong was invited to work for the American space-flight program. He was selected to pilot the Dynasoar, an experimental craft capable of leaving the atmosphere, orbiting earth, and then reentering the atmosphere for a conventional aircraft landing. Armstrong, however, was not excited by the mission, as his first love was piloting airplanes.

In 1962, Armstrong applied for selection and training to become an astronaut; and later that year, moved to Houston, Texas, to begin training. Armstrong’s first assignment was serving as backup/alternate pilot for Gordon Cooper on the Gemini 5 expedition. Armstrong was later selected as the command pilot for the Gemini 8 mission, which launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida, on March 16, 1966. The Gemini 8 quickly lost control after orbit, which Armstrong remedied by detaching from the craft, correcting the malfunction, and bringing the Gemini down in the Pacific Ocean.

Due to his calm handling of the Gemini 8 incident, amongst other feats, Armstrong emerged as the natural choice to be the first man on the moon. In January 1969, Armstrong was selected as commander of the first lunar landing mission, Apollo 11. On July 16, Armstrong and fellow astronauts, Michael Collins and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. As with many previous expeditions, the lunar landing did not go without a hitch. As they descended toward the moon for landing, the computer overloaded and a boulder field also impeded their landing. Armstrong then switched to manual control and made a smooth landing on the moon’s surface with just 10 seconds of fuel remaining. Upon first setting foot on the moon, Armstrong uttered the famous words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Armstrong and Aldrin spent the next two hours conducting experiments and collecting rock and soil samples on the moon’s surface, which Armstrong described as " fine and powdery." The astronauts left behind a mission patch and medals commemorating the American and Russian who died in the line of duty, and a plaque which read: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. We came in peace for all mankind."

Armstrong retired from space travel after Apollo 11, and joined Nasa's Office of Advanced Research and Technology as deputy associate administrator for aeronautics. In 1970 he earned a master's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Southern California, and the following year, moved with his family back to Ohio to work at the University of Cincinnati as a professor of aerospace engineering. Since then, Armstrong has served on various boards; accepted two government appointments; including the National Commission on Space in 1984 and in 1986 President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the Presidential Commission that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, and been the recipient of numerous awards from all across the globe.